Labour

Miliband tells Cameron: Save 6,000 nurses by abandoning NHS reorganisation now

Ed Miliband will today accuse the Government of directly damaging frontline patient care with its unnecessary and unwanted top-down reorganisation of the NHS.

Talking today about frontline pressure right across the NHS, he will point to new figures released by Labour that show the number of NHS nurses has now fallen by 3,500 since the general election and that indicate the total fall in nurses could be at least 6,000 by the end of this Parliament.

At the same time Labour will highlight that the funds set aside to pay for the costs of the Health Bill’s reorganisation would be more than sufficient to protect all of these 6,000 nursing jobs if Parliament chose in the coming weeks to abandon the reorganisation.

The Labour leader, along with Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham, will be visiting s taff and patients at the Princess Royal University Hospital in Kent.

It comes as Labour launches the next stage of its campaign against the Government’s Health Bill which is returning to Parliament this week.

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, will say:

"In tough times and with little money around the very first priority should be to protect the frontline NHS. Instead we have a government blowing a vast amount of money on a damaging top-down reorganisation at the same time as it is cutting thousands of nurses, with more than 3,000 already gone.

"Labour’s priority is protecting the frontline, not a pointless and damaging reorganisation of the NHS. So we are calling for the Bill to be scrapped, and for some of the money set aside to fund this reorganisation to instead be made available to the NHS to protect the thousands of nursing posts either already cut or set to be cut in the coming years.

"It is a clear and simpl e choice for the Government: by stopping this damaging reorganisation we can fund 6,000 nurses.

"In opposition David Cameron told people he could be trusted to protect the NHS. In government he has put Tory free-market ideology ahead of basic patient care."

Last year, the Government set aside nearly £1.8bn to pay for the costs of Health Bill reorganisation that could only be used once the Health Bill is enacted. Labour is calling for £750m of the money being used to fund the reorganisation to be used instead to fund 6,000 nursing posts over the Spending Review period, replacing the 3,500 nurses that have already been lost, and protecting a further 2,500 posts that research suggests will be lost in the coming years.

Andy Burnham MP, Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, will say:

"In just over 18 months in government, the Coalition has taken a successful and confident NHS and turned it into an organisation that's demoralised, destabilis ed and fearful of the future. It is reckless in the extreme to plough on with this reorganisation when organisations that represent 1.2m NHS staff are lined up against it. It threatens seriously damaging the key relationships that underpin the NHS. By allowing existing NHS structures to disintegrate before new ones are in place, the Government is creating a loss of grip and focus at local level and the NHS is showing signs of increasing distress."